1987-P Washington Quarter

The 1987-P quarter was struck to 582,499,481 pieces, an ordinary high-volume Philadelphia output and one of the few years in the late 1980s when Philadelphia trailed its Denver counterpart by a meaningful margin. The P mintmark sits at the right side of Washington's hair queue on the obverse, in the position established when Philadelphia first applied a mintmark to the denomination in 1980. The coin is a standard 75% copper over 25% nickel clad strike bonded to a pure-copper core, weighing 5.67 grams, with the reddish copper edge line the immediate visual confirmation of clad composition. No collector-relevant transition or design change interrupts the standard Flanagan obverse and heraldic eagle reverse for the year.

Strike quality on the issue is generally good. Philadelphia presses in 1987 produced reliable detail across most of the design, with the eagle's breast feathers and center arrows the routine soft spots when planchet fill came up short. Look for crisp tail-feather definition and sharp arrow detail below the bird as the standard markers of a full strike; a mushy center reverse on an otherwise lustrous example signals incomplete fill under die pressure rather than wear. No major doubled-die obverses or repunched-mintmark varieties for the date have been formally attributed by PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, or NGC, the Numismatic Guaranty Company, so cherrypicking yields are thin and the date trades as a workhorse common issue. Counterfeit pressure is essentially nil because the coin moves at face value through MS64.

In collecting terms, the 1987-P is a common date and the site classifies it Regular. MS65 and MS66 examples are easy to acquire at modest prices, with 1987 mint sets and original bank-wrapped rolls providing the practical supply pool for higher-grade material. Condition rarity arrives at MS67 and above, where strike softness, minor planchet flaws, and bag-mark accumulation thin the certified population sharply, and registry-set collectors pay meaningful premiums for the few luster-bright Gems with full central detail. A date-set builder fills the slot at minimal cost; the realistic upgrade path runs through fresh mint-set submissions rather than the auction circuit. For the broader story of John Flanagan's design and the series' production arc, see the Washington Quarter series history.